Financial Information about the charity

Income increased by 8% to £390,748 (2016: £361,698). Our budget for the year had predicted income to increase to £384,000 so actual income was therefore 2% over budget.

Expenditure increased by 1% to £390,212 (2016: £386,173). Our budget for the year had predicted expenditure of £378,800 so actual expenditure was 3% over budget.

This has resulted in a surplus of net resources of £536 (2016: deficit of £24,475).

Budget for 2018

The Trustees have agreed a budget for 2018 of income totaling £370,600 (2017: £384,000) of which £42,600 (2017: £84,000) had been secured by the start of the year. Budgeted expenditure is £370,460 (2017: £378,800).

Reserves policy

Over the course of the first six months of 2011 the value of our reserves fell by 64% which forced us to cut back on our activities and make some redundancies. During 2017 we have again experienced erratic income. We were running a year-to-date deficit for the first 11 months of the year and it was only narrowly turned into a surplus when December saw the same income as the first 20 weeks of the year added together. Our reserves had been at a record high level at the start of the year and this enabled us to cushion the fall in income and continue our work as planned and without cutting back. Our reserves were partially replenished by the end of the year.

Our reliance on one-off donations from Charitable Trusts makes our income very unpredictable so our Reserves Policy is relatively conservative. Our policy is that “Unrestricted Reserves should be equivalent to between 30 and 40 weeks of budgeted future annual unsecured expenditure.” At the end of the year our Unrestricted Reserves (General Funds) were £101,998 (2016: £114,826). Our budgeted expenditure for 2018 is £370,460 of which £42,600 had already been secured and £165,669 was covered by Restricted Funds leaving a balance of £162,191 (2016: £152,125) to raise. Our Unrestricted Reserves were sufficient to cover 63% (2016: 75%) of this balance which equates to 33 weeks (2016: 39 weeks).

Given the volatile nature of much of our income, the Trustees will continue to closely monitor the reserves position throughout the forthcoming year, spending any surplus funds on charitable activities.